by Amy B. Nixon
NORDSTROM NECROMANCER
NORDSTROM NECROMANCER BOOK ONE
AMY B. NIXON
Copyright © 2020 Amy B. Nixon
Cover Art by Ammonia Book Covers
Edits and formatting by Luna Imprints
All rights reserved.
This book is registered with Copyright House. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author, with the exception of short snippets used in book reviews and similar literary critique pieces.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Synopsis:
My life used to be the embodiment of a heartbreaking pop song. Then it became something only a psychopath on mushrooms could have written.
Twenty year old Learyn Dustrikke’s life takes a turn for the worst when she learns that she’s descending from a long line of Scandinavian necromancers – sorcerers born with a rare type of magic that dilutes the borders of life and the afterlife.
And Learyn’s own existence has become threatened by a greater power than the one capable of raising the dead from their grave.
The only way out seems simple enough. Give up her mundane life and relocate from San Francisco to Norway under the protection of the ominous Nordstrom Island. What she doesn’t expect, however, is to find herself in bigger trouble than ever before.
Packed with questions, armed with magic she can’t control and surrounded by a foreign world she can’t understand, Learyn is a ticking time bomb with an extremely short fuse that always explodes in the worst possible moments.
Journey with Learyn to the fascinating lands of sublime fjords, radiant northern lights, ancient Norse mythology and sinister creatures in this New Adult Dark Fantasy series as our heroine learns that black magic isn’t something to mess around with.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Synopsis
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Why can’t it be dead unicorns?” I asked woefully. “Or dead… well, anything really? Does it have to be a fucking Nøkken?”
I loathed every single Nøkken.
Those mermaid bitches almost led to my untimely demise. If it were up to me, their dead relative would have stayed fucking dead for all of eternity.
Sadly, as I drew defensive runes on the rocky ground beneath me, I knew there was no way around this. We were about to summon a monstrous spirit from the depths of the Norwegian Sea. Regardless of my lack of desire for meeting with said spirit, it had to be done.
But it didn’t mean I was going down willingly.
“Okay, then how about a dead reindeer? Wanna go to Finland and resurrect one of Rudolph’s cousins?”
“Just do it, Swallow!” Aurora hissed in my direction.
If looks could kill, my glare would have scorched Aurora to her very core and spread the cinders of her essence as far away from the Scandinavian Peninsula as possible. Preferably all the way to another planet, but hey, I wasn’t the greedy type.
“Fine!” I gritted my teeth and took a deep, slow breath, turning my face towards the water surface. “And stop using that stupid nickname!”
I could have uttered the word please if I wasn’t speaking to Aurora. But let’s face it, the only female creature in all Nine Realms that was worse than a Nøkken was this blonde bimbo. Taking another breath, I pushed Aurora’s presence out of my head and made my way towards the serrated edge where the water touched the stumpy cliffs.
It seemed as if the sea could feel the ensnaring bind of necromancy coming off us. All of its waves had calmed down shortly after we started drawing the symbols. Now it stood unnaturally tranquil and otherworldly, completely still with bated breath, foreboding the horrors that were yet to come.
Learyn Dustrikke
A month before my twenty-first birthday, my life switched from the embodiment of a heartbreaking pop song to something only a psychopath on mushrooms could have composed.
I used to have a promising future as a soon-to-be software developer in San Francisco, where I was born and later raised by my aunt, Adaline Dust. My parents died in a plane crash when I was twelve. My uncle followed when I was seventeen. As far as I knew, everyone else in my family was also dead.
Then my idea of dead changed forever.
It happened on a cloudy November night when my sleep was cut short by loud screams. Stumbling over to my aunt’s bedroom, I found her tossing under the covers. She was crying out a series of weird, inarticulate sounds, almost like syllables in a foreign language.
“Aunty?” I said, shaking her shoulders. “Aunty, wake up!”
She rose to a sitting position with one final yell, and stared at me with the same shade of olive green eyes I had inherited from her brother.
“Learyn!”
Panting, she grabbed my wrists in an uncomfortably tight way.
“You were having a nightmare. Who’s Learyn?”
Her hands dropped. She inhaled through her nose, pursing her lips in a thin line.
“You are Learyn. Your real name is Learyn Dustrikke.”
What the hell? My name was Leah Dust, not Learyn Dustrikke.
“Aunty, I think you’ve had a seriously fucked up dream.”
“No, dear.” She exhaled with a heavy sigh, slouching forward. “Your birth name is Learyn Dustrikke. We forged the birth certificate and Americanized your name to Leah Dust in order to hide your true lineage. You descend from a line of Norwegian necromancers.”
“A line of what-now?”
I frowned as my mind made associations with those creepy creatures from Dungeons & Dragons. The ones who summoned ghosts and raised dead people.
“Necromancers, dear. Much to my dismay, they are the only ones who can help you now. I don’t have time to explain, but it’s imperative that you leave tonight. I can’t protect you if you remain here.”
Instead of giving me explanations, my aunt only gave me a pile of mind-blowing shit.
She told me my Norwegian family had moved to the US right after I was born. They had put a spell on baby-me, which suppressed my magical abilities. This way I would never know of the existence of anything supernatural, so I could have a safe life, raised like a mortal human being. But despite their plan, I was now in grave danger – according to my aunt.
I should point out the fact that I had just about had it with everyone’s bullshit.
My miserable history with my ex-boyfriends had gotten the best of me. My friends had labeled me as overly dramatic, too depressing to be around and not capable of holding it together. Long story short, I had become a tangled knot of uncontrollable anger, dull pain and burning embarrassment.
So, naturally, when my aunt made all these revelations, I went from pure confusion to Bitch Mode: Activated in no time.
“This is fucking insane!” I screamed, jumping off her bed. “If we were really
necromancers, my parents wouldn’t be dead! Neither would my uncle!”
“Learyn, please, I don’t have time to explain. You must leave for Norway at once. I’ll follow you as soon as I can, but we can’t waste more time tonight.”
Hearing her use that name enraged me to a whole new level.
I blurted out a considerable amount of profanities and wandered around our house like an insane person for an hour. Then, I finally agreed with her. Drawing the line on my current situation and moving to Norway was a good way to start over. I would be away from every single factor that had turned me into a ticking time bomb.
“So, what? I just take the first flight to whatever their capital is?”
“Their capital is Oslo, but you won’t be going to the city. The only place you’ll be safe is Nordstrøm Island.”
My head exploded with a whole bunch of questions.
Did magic really exist? Would I need a special Visa to go to Norway? What about the language? Did they speak English on that island? How cold was Norway? It was close to the North Pole, right? And why didn’t she want to tell me the real reason for sending me to the North Pole?
“Read this,” my aunt put an abrupt end to my mental word vomit by handing me a sheet of paper.
I could tell her hands had been shaking because her writing was illegible. Moreover, it was in another language. There was a crossed O letter, along with some strange syllables.
“Quickly, dear!”
“N-nord… Nordst… Nordstroum… j-jeg? Or is it pronounced jig?”
“It’s Nur-sh-tryom, ya-y… We don’t have time for this. Focus on the paper and repeat nine times after me: Northern Stream, I welcome thee.”
On the ninth time I said it, the door behind me slammed shut onto its frame with a sharp and crisp bang. I jumped, dropping the paper. The windows were closed; there was no way for an air current capable of something like this to rush into our house. As I kept looking around for the sudden draft’s source, the photographs hung on the nearest wall swung side to side.
“The fu–”
Before I could curse at these unnatural occurrences, a shadow materialized out of nowhere, swirling in the air between me and the opposite wall. Dense black smoke, spinning vigorously, with glistening knots of neon greens and bright emeralds. Mesmerized and immobilized, I watched it divide into two equals. They increased in size, quickly forming the likes of two humanoid figures.
And just like that, two unfamiliar men in plain black suits were standing in my living room. My jaw fell. Shit! Magic was real!
“Learyn Dustrikke.”
They spoke simultaneously, but I couldn’t understand a single word of the ones that followed next. Awesome! Even the foreign David Blane wannabes, who had magically broken into the house, knew my real name, when I didn’t!
Irritation and confusion spun through me. I watched them wave, stick and sweep their fingers through the air, still speaking in a strange language. Were they doing magic? I didn’t see any flickering lights, unexplainable blows of air, more magical shadows…
Without warning, a deafening snap pierced my ears, making me cringe in pain. A feverishly hot wave poured over me, pulsating through my body, followed by an icy cold one, twice as intense as its predecessor had been. I staggered towards the couch, and fell on the floor. Slowly, the shivers died down, leaving me with a sensation that my limbs were made out of jelly. On the bright side, my ears were no longer affected by that horrendous sound.
Sucking in deep breaths in an attempt to steady myself, I lowered my gaze to the sheet of paper. Focusing on it and applying the breathing techniques I had learned from my Pilates classes, I realized I was able to comprehend the words. And it wasn’t due to my aunt’s earlier translation. I was actually able to read and understand them.
“Did…” I stuttered in total bewilderment. “Did you put some spell on me to transform me into a polyglot?”
“They also removed the spell suppressing your magic.” My aunt’s voice sounded relieved of its previous nervous vibes. I lifted my head to see her resting on my uncle’s old recliner, eyes closed, fingers massaging her temples. “Everything will be okay, dear, everything will be okay. They will protect you.”
The disorientating, deafening and startling sensations had all gone away, and it seemed like she was talking to herself rather than to me.
“But now I can read and speak Norwegian?”
“Bokmål and Nynorsk, as well as Old Norse.” All of a sudden, she was back on her feet and helping me off the ground. “You must promise me you won’t try to leave the island under any circumstances!”
“Geez, I haven’t even gotten there!”
“It will be different from any other place you’ve been to, and I won’t be there to help you–”
“I’ll manage!” I snapped back, cutting her off, and pulled away.
Over the course of the past hour I had lost my trust in the only relative I still had. Now her touch seemed not only foreign, but deceitful.
She didn’t seem anxious or nervous like she’d been before the two men showed up. She was just guilty. “I wish I could protect you here, but Norway is the safest place for you right now.”
“Miss Dustrikke, get your baggage ready,” one of the guys spoke before I could spit out another angry remark. “We must leave.”
Yeah, I got that, I just don’t get why.
Biting back a rude verbal response, I rushed to my room.
My aunt hadn’t pointed out the exact thing Nordstrøm Island was supposed to protect me from, just that I needed to relocate halfway across the globe. I had wasted an hour in screaming before agreeing to this madness. Something told me these guys wouldn’t wait another hour for me to sort through Converses and stilettos.
I filled a large suitcase with all the necessities I could think of, as well as my essential tech toys. Five minutes later, I was standing in the living room, one hand resting on the suitcase, the other one pulling my laptop bag over my shoulder.
“Okay, Learyn, this is it,” I told myself out loud, using my real name in the hopes of learning to accept it soon. “Say goodbye to your dreams of writing the most brilliant code Silicon Valley has ever seen, and get ready for the Mecca of black metal music and Satanism.”
“Nordstrøm residents worship neither Satan, nor the goddess Hel,” one of the guys declared.
“Oookay. Good to know.” Did he mean Hel like Hela from the movie Thor: Ragnarök? Because I totally worshipped Cate Blanchett in that role! “Do they headbang to Norwegian black metal all day long?”
“Not to my knowledge,” the same guy replied vaguely.
“How about to Justin Bieber? Because he’s totally a deal breaker.”
“Miss Dustrikke, your deal was sealed the moment you spoke the conjuration. We must leave.”
I rolled my eyes at him. My aunt stepped in and threw her arms around me. “I truly am sorry, dear, but they will protect you. I will come as soon as I take care of some business here. No matter what happens, always remember you’re a Dustrikke. No spell can take that away from you.”
Still feeling the bitter taste of discovering she had been feeding me lies my entire life, I stood silent, numb and angry.
“I hope you’ll forgive me one day. We only wished for you to have a safe life.”
Some tiny part of me felt bad for her guilt and wanted to hug her back. She was the only living relative I had, and now I had to move away from her without even knowing the reason. But that was a tiny, barely noticeable part. And it was heavily overshadowed by all the anger and bitterness, coursing through my veins like it was a Fast and Furious race.
My aunt let go of me and took a few steps back. Her eyes glanced from left to right, exchanging looks with the men. They set foot at my sides and grabbed me by the elbows. I could tell there was something else she wanted to say when she pursed her lips and shifted her weight.
But all I needed was to get away.
She could leave her message on my voicemail
. I didn’t want to hear yet another excuse for being deceived about something as fundamental as the existence of magic.
A split of a second later, my blood pressure dropped. I felt cold and dizzy, and my knees became shaky. Blinking slowly, I applied the same Pilates breathing techniques from earlier.
And then I forgot how to breathe altogether.
What stood before me was a stone bridge, too narrow to support more than a single car. Lined with pavement, it spanned out to an otherworldly island surrounded by open waters. A vast horizon spread for as far as my eyes could see in the dawning sky. Soft pinkish glow broke from the clouds, obstructed by the silhouette of an enormous medieval castle, perched atop the island.
Disney’s version of Neuschwanstein could suck it.
Dressed in ashy pinks and dark purples by the light of dawn, this right here deserved to be Sleeping Beauty’s fairytale castle. I made out the outlines of columns and orders, eaves and sills, arched windows and a clock tower. The person who had built this lavish castle obviously hadn’t spared a single dime.
Moving my gaze up, I saw numerous pointy towers stretching towards the skies. As if the grandeur of the massive structure wasn’t wondrous enough, there were dozens of smaller towers above all of it, nestled on fragments of… floating islands! They were tiny floating islands, just roaming freely in the air above the castle!
Basking in the picturesque vista’s glory, I swallowed my grammar and lexis. I was genuinely incapable of producing a single sound. How could this place be associated with dreadful practitioners of death magic?
Little did I know, deceptive appearances were yet to reveal their true, grotesque form.
“Welcome to Nordstrøm Island.”
My brain could barely register one of the men’s voices, let alone note the fact that, somehow, we had traveled from California to Norway in the blink of an eye.
I sheepishly let the guys guide me across the bridge. My feet functioned fully on autopilot, since I was too stunned to talk or perform basic motor functions.
“If you still wish to leave–”